Some time ago, I geared up for a game of GRANDE ARMEE (GA), Sam Mustafa’s large scale Napoleonic epic. GA uses large 3 inch by 3 inch stands, with each stand representing a full division. But I went Sam one better… I used 4 inch by 4 inch stands for my GA presentation, simply because they were handy. Each stand, or tray, held several of my 15mm stands, and casualties were scored by removing single stands of the 15mm troops. But now that I had made all these huge 4 inch trays, the question arose… what else could I do with them… and the answer immediately presented itself… use them for an ancients game, also employing my 15mm troops. Three 4 inch trays of infantry, side by side, were defined as a Battle Line (BL), so that the BL measured 12 inches across. Each tray, which I termed a Battle Group (BG), held a particular type of troop… either heavy infantry or medium infantry, you couldn’t mix heavies and mediums withn the BG. Cavalry were treated differently from infantry… each BG of cavalry, i.e., each single 4 inch tray, was an independent unit… cavalry were not grouped into BLs. And each cavalry BG held only a single type of cavalry… either heavy cavalry or medium cavalry. When a BL moved forward, it had to roll on the chart below. Noe that 60 percent of the time, all went well… the BGs in the BL advanced, shoulder to shoulder, in one solid line. A toss of percentage dice more than 60, and one, or two, of the BGs would hang back, so that the BL would no longer present a solid frontage. Over 80 BL may not wheel Move 10”, 2 BG elements fall back (dice) From 61 to 80 BL may wheel up to 22 degrees Move 10”, 1 BG element falls back (dice) Up to 60 BL may wheel up to 45 degrees Move 15”, Formation is solid The configuration was important, because the combat poins of each BL stemmed from those BGs next to each other… thse BGs that hung back contributed very little to the point system. Cavalry were treated a wee bit differently. The percentage chance, P, for a cavalry BG to move was always a function of the distance to be moved. P (lt cav) = 80 - (Distance to be moved) P (hvy cav) = 70 - (Distance to be moved) If, for example, you wanted your light cavalry to advance 25 inches, the chance to do so was P (lt cav) = 80 - 25, or 55 percent. And if you failed your toss, the cavalry BG could only move 5 inches. One might say that, according to the above system, movement was at the mercy of the charts. But, to counter this, each side was given a number of “adjutants”, and each adjutant could vary the required percentage by 10 percent. Thus, in this last example of moving the light cavalry 25 inches, if you commited one adjutant to help out, the required percentage would increase to 65 percent. Two adjutants would increase the percentage to 75. Each turn, adjutants were committed, and once committed, were removed from the field. Each side was given a number of new adjutants each turn to speed up the movement process. In our battle, we had two participants per side and I faced Cleo Liebl. In in accordance with Simon theory, I had my troops advance as quickly as possible to contact Cleo’s people and test the melee rules. A silly thing to do. Cleo was deadly in the clinches. One of my heavy cavalry BGs contacted one of Cleo’s, and we added up our respective Combat Points (CP). On our BG trays, we each had 4 15mm stands of heavy cavalry. a For Cleo, she received 1 CP for her tray, i.e., for her existing BG b Next, on her BG, she had 4 stands of heavy cavalry in the BG, and for each one, she got 3 CP, givng her 12. c This gave Cleo 13 CP total… round it up to 14, and divide by 2, and Cleo has seven 10-sided Hit Dice to toss. d I, also with a heavy cavalry BG, had the same number of Hit Dice e We both tossed our dice, looking for a 1, or 2, or 3… each hit knocked off a stand of 15mm troops. f I tossed 1 hit, but Cleo tossed 3… and so 3 of my heavy cavalry stands were removed, while Cleo lost only 1 stand. g Not surprising, I lost and my BG, reduced to only a single 15mm stand of heavy cavalry, retreated. As I said, Cleo was tough in the clinches. And repeatedly so… whatever I threw against her, was walluped and retreated. When infantry Battle Line met Battle Line, the calculations ran as detailed below. Remember that a Battle Line (BL) consisted off 3 trays, i.e., 3 BGs. In one instance, for example, a BL composed of 2 heavy infantry BGs and 1 medium infantry BG met the enemy in midfield. a First, each BG in the BL was given 1 CP, merely for existing. This gave 3 CP b Heavy infantry were worth 2 CP per 15mm troop stands, and each heavy BG had 4 15mm stands on it. For the two BGs, this gave a total of 8+8, or 16 CP c Medium infantry were worth 1 CP per 15mm stand, and the single medium BG, composed of five 15mm stands, received 5 CP. d Somehow, the player managed to brng up a supporting medium cavalry BG of four 15mm stands, each stand contributing 1 CP, giving 4 in all. e Adding up the CP, you get 28 CP. Dividing by 2 gives a total of 14 Hit Dice. In essence, therefore, by looking at the above, it was a grand dice-tossing affair. Each hit on an enemy BL removed one 15mm stand. Half the stands were deemed to be destroyed, but the other half were defined as deserters… the player causing the casualties received the stands into his reserve area, and could use them to build up a series of reserve BGs which, at an appropriate phase in the sequence, could be brought back on the field. In this manner, there was a wee bit of “recycling” done. At the start of the battle, each side was given 3 infantry BLs of 3 BGs each, plus an assortment of heavy and light cavalry. To achieve victory, a side had to eliminate a total of 3 enemy BGs... in effect, you had to wipe out the equivalent of a single 3-tray BL. Around Turn #5, we each had lost 2 BGs, and the loss of the next BG would be decisive. And, sure enough, it was Cleo who put the finishing touches on us. One of her heavy cavalry BGs, composed of four 15mm stands, managed to penetrate our lines and get into our reserve area. Her cavalry BG smashed into the reserve area and contacted one of BGs, one that we were building up to bring back on the field. No contest. Battle over. Back to PW Review July 2002 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com